Fiction

Weike Wang’s Meticulous Satires of Identity Politics

Weike Wang’s Meticulous Satires of Identity Politics Weike Wang’s Meticulous Satires of Identity Politics

Rental House, a novel of marriage and manners, tries to make sense of how a blended family negotiates conflicts of race and class.

Apr 29, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Camille Bromley

An Amazon Prime package delivered to a mailbox by in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2020.

The Poetic Life of the Online Shopper The Poetic Life of the Online Shopper

Kevin Killian’s Selected Amazon Reviews is a tender-hearted look at the art and pathos of consumerism.

Apr 23, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Lauren Stroh

Robert Redford in “The Great Gatsby” (1974).

Will There Ever Be Another “Great Gatsby”? Will There Ever Be Another “Great Gatsby”?

A century on, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s great Jazz Age novel still speaks to what ails America.

Apr 15, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Mark Chiusano

Sigrid Nunez On and Off the Big Screen

Sigrid Nunez On and Off the Big Screen Sigrid Nunez On and Off the Big Screen

Two new films—Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door and Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s The Friend—attempt to adapt her work. Do they succeed?

Apr 9, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Sarah Chihaya

A depiction of Herod the Great.

Zora Neale Hurston’s Lost Roman Epic Zora Neale Hurston’s Lost Roman Epic

In The Life of Herod the Great, we get a novel full of intrigue, betrayal, and revolution.

Apr 9, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Edna Bonhomme

An interior view of a model condominium at the sales center for the Platinum luxury condominiums in New York City, 2008.

Rumaan Alam’s Haves and Have-Nots Rumaan Alam’s Haves and Have-Nots

With his latest novel, Entitlement, he asks: Can wealth inequality make you lose your mind?

Mar 5, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Jess Bergman

Djuna Barnes, 1922.

Djuna Barnes’s Playthings Djuna Barnes’s Playthings

Her short fiction provides an odd glimpse at a writer whose interests move beyond the human and into something more inchoate.

Feb 25, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Missouri Williams

“Summer Interior” by Edward Hopper, 1909. Located at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Vigdis Hjorth and the Novel of Ugly Love Vigdis Hjorth and the Novel of Ugly Love

In If Only, the Norwegian novelist distills a story of romance into all its private discomfort and claustrophobia. Its intense ambivalence in regards to love feels truer to life. ...

Feb 4, 2025 / Books & the Arts / David Schurman Wallace

The Polymath of Pittsburgh

The Polymath of Pittsburgh The Polymath of Pittsburgh

Garielle Lutz is one of America’s great writers. Why has her literary genius gone unnoticed?

Jan 28, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Kolitz

Caroline Blackwood, 1953.

Caroline Blackwood’s Graceful Nightmares Caroline Blackwood’s Graceful Nightmares

The writer and socialite's gothic fictions were also cutting works of social comedy.

Jan 23, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Isabella Trimboli

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